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Topic: Drone Comb Question, Top Bar (Read 1054 times)

I have 4 hives, one of which is a 19" wide top bar, 20 bars long. My other hives (1 Lang with Russians hived on 4/17, 1 Long Hive with a swarm hived on 5/23, 1 Nuc from a swarm 6/13) all seem to already be capping honey, but the top bar (package Italians, hived 4/17) seems to be falling behind, after originally getting more comb drawn out than all the other hives. Population in the hive seems to be increasing just as dramatically as my other hives, but there seems to be very little stored nectar in this one. I fed them for the first 4 weeks, as I did all the hives, but pulled the feed afterward. At first, the top bar had capped honey at the top of the bars, brood below, but as of this week's inspection, that honey was gone. I stuck the feeder back on the top bar not wanting them to go without.

On inspection, I found the original queen, lots of eggs and brood. However, it seems like 4 of the 17 completely drawn out bars are completely drone comb, and there do seem to be more drones in this hive than in all my others. Brood pattern on all the other combs is tight, and all the others are covered in regular brood cells. Does this sound like a high amount of drone comb for the number of drawn out bars? If y'all think I should re-queen, it shouldn't be hard, I have a swarm hive right now that has several queen cells brewing, so I could get one of those new girls for the top bar. Let's see, other info... the 4 hives we have on are 5 acres, out in the country outside of Denver, entire area for miles around is absolutely covered with all kinds of wild flowers, weather has been nice and mild for the last two months. I see lots of pollen coming into this hive, as well as the others, but less stored pollen in the top bar than the others have amassed. No obvious signs of any disease, mites are not seen on the bees, comb looks nice, and there are only very few dead bees ever on the ground near this hive.

If it does seem like too many drones, I reckon that would explain the loss of food in the hive, since they'd be eating up what the foragers were bringing in. I don't want to do anything at all before getting some ideas from others wiser and more experienced than I with all this.

I don't know about your area but here that would be about the right % of drone brood for this time of year.

Scott

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All righty, if that sounds about right, then maybe the girls in this hive just haven't found the same things to bring in as the other hives. I'll keep feeding them for a while, and see if they don't pick back up. Thanks!